A Reflection on Student Presentations

I was on one of my campuses and received an invitation to watch student book reports in Ms Cole's second period class. This teacher's team uses technology regularly throughout the week and I was ready to enjoy some good presentations, most-likely slidedecks. 

Sitting in that room, it was quickly clear to me that the students were not just doing slidedecks. For starters, there was a buzz in the room with excited students ready to share. They were at their desks, ready to take notes about the book reports. The teacher began by just stepping back and letting the first student take control of the computer. The green flag was dropped and the students were off!

After only about six student presentations, I witnessed Google Slides, Prezi, MovieMaker, PowerPoint, iMovie, Videoscribe, PowToons, Scratch animations, YouTube and more. Students were citing resources from Pixabay, Wikipedia, Flickr and either making or using copyright-free music in their presentations. Final products were shared on the classroom wiki, from a YouTube link of their movie or on another web-hosted site. 

I was impressed by the products that they created, but walked away with permission to share because of what I heard in conversations. "This is fun watching everybody's presentations. You get to how everybody was creative." Students asked questions about the content and about the technical aspects of the presentation. "Does PowToons have any online tutorials?" one student asked. 

Let's put some light on Ms Cole for a second. Her conversations often included, "How did you do that?" and "I don't know what that is. Could you teach us later?" The classroom was a learning environment where students were free to evaluate and choose the technology that best helped them demonstrate their content. There was a criteria for 'must use technology', but Ms Cole let them use their experience over the year so far and their natural techno-curiosity to become engaged in their learning at an electric level.

The teacher had a large part in getting students to this point. The project requirements included a storyboard of some kind to help plan their product and were held to a firm deadline. Students were asked by their peers, "How long did that take you?" Each student was able to give a good estimate and explanation. "It took me 6 hours one weekend," said one movie maker, "because I was learning new software. Next time it will take me much less time." The teacher regularly posts assignments in her classroom wiki and students started the year by typing work into the wiki or providing links to their Google Apps content. The technology had become a natural extension to the classroom learning process.

There were hindrances. The classroom is not a one-to-one class and has some of the oldest hardware at the school. Students didn't have training on their online tools and had to problem-solve things. (For example, Google Slides won't let you play a song throughout the presentation, so the student played the song in one tab before starting the presentation in a different tab!) Often seen as a huge disadvantage is that she was working with 4th grade students who had to learn to access the district servers and Google products without email or on-campus technology support. Yes, these were 4th graders! 

The students had become content creators with the encouragement from the teacher. She admits to the students that she is just as much a learner as they are and that the classroom community must learn together and help each other. Ms Cole doesn't claim to be the biggest technology guru in the state, but her students are benefitting from her willingness to try new things and allowing her students the creative opportunities that keep them coming to school enthusiastic about learning. I very much enjoyed these presentations and the student enthusiasm in the room.

What could your next step be to transform your classroom into a more student-centered learning environment? Are you already there? What could you share with peers that could help them in their next steps? 

ViewPure - YouTube without the distraction

YouTube is a great resource for educational content. It is also a source for, shall we say, off-topic content. Often the great educational content shares the screen with a "related" video that grabs our students' attention like a flashing sign advertising free ice cream. Sometimes there are also comments posted by people demonstrating their command of the English dialect my grandmother called "sailor talk".

 ViewPure is a free web service that allows you to watch and project YouTube videos without seeing potentially distracting "related" videos or comments sections. Simply paste the address of the Youtube video you wish to isolate and click the Purify button.

The video is then displayed in a clean browser window free of related videos and comments section. Because there is less clutter on the page, the video gets much more screen real estate.

ViewPure also creates a reusable URL and allows for creation of a custom URL with a password. Just click on the gear icon after pasting in your YouTube video address and adjust the settings.

Too many steps? Don't want to have to remember to copy and paste? Want a quick and easy way to use ViewPure from your browser? You are in luck. 

ViewPure has a shortcut that can be added to the browser bookmark bar that will automagically open the YouTube video in the browser window in the clean ViewPure format.

If you would like additional information on using web video with your classes, please contact your Instructional Technology Specialist.

Paperslide Videos (updated)

After having several discussions lately with teachers about easy and highly engaging student products, I have spent a good bit of time talking about the Paperslide videos that we have shared with a good many teachers over the past few years.  We liked it so much when we first heard about it in 2011 that we posted a story about it on this blog.

Since the post was being shared so much lately, I decided to update the broken links and repost the story.  Among the fixed links would be Dr Lodge McCammon's online resources which he has also updated and made even easier to use.

Please check out our old story (with new information) to see how a very simple piece of technology can engage students quickly and get them deeper into the content you are teaching.

Paperslide Videos! Easy Way To Use Tech AND Show Learning!

Have you used paperslide videos in your classroom?  Leave a comment below with your experiences.

Safe Video Viewing In The Classroom?

Video used well in the classroom can both engage students and help the teacher express ideas in different ways. Showing the perfect instructional video with Party In Padre ads on the page, however, can be distracting and ruin the points being made.  There are some great tools that work well with YouTube that teachers can take advantage of.

SafeShare.tv is a resource that allows you to not only block the ads, but present the video on the page all by itself.

Choose the color of the border around your video, give the video a new name and even choose beginning and ending points for your safe video.  (We suggest that you don't use SafeShare's download option, but instead use KeepVid to download your YouTube video.

SafeShare.tv provides you with a URL that can be shared with students which presents the video with all of the settings you chose.

KeepVid.com is a different site that lets you download the video to your computer.  The best rule for using video with students is to plan for a busy network and use video from your computer rather than a web-streamed source.  KeepVid gives you options for downloading the video to your computer.

KeepVid provides a box to paste your YouTube link into before clicking the Download button. The result is a list of downloadable files.

The (Video Only) options are just that, videos that include no sound.  Those are actually fantastic resources for some class projects.  For example, have the students drop the video file into WeVideo and provide their own soundtrack that teaches the viewer a lesson!

We have provided an Anchor of Support that steps you through both of these online tools. Check out these Anchors:  SafeShare.tv (bit.ly/aisdsafeshare) and  KeepVid.com (bit.ly/aisdkeepvid)

How would you use these in your classroom? Do you use a different tool for sharing YouTube videos with students?  Leave a comment below to share!

Convert Video Inside Google Drive for iPad Viewing

Ever need to reduce the file size or viewing size of a video?  Ever needed to convert a video into a specific format for your mobile device? Finding a free and powerful video converter can sometimes be tricky.  You no longer need to search for such a tool.  Convert-video-online.com  (from 123apps.com) is already connected to your Google Drive.

First login to your Google Drive and then upload your video or drag it on top of your Google Drive window in your web browser.  (This works best with Google Chrome!)  After your video has fully uploaded, double click the video file in Drive to open it.

Once your video is open, click the Open selection window just above your video. Select Video Converter in the Suggested Apps list and that website will open up.

The website will open with your selected video already entered for conversion. In the second section, you can select the converted file format, resolution quality and desired file size for the end product.  The third section requires nothing more than clicking the Convert button. 

The video will start being converted and you'll see a progress bar slide towards completion.  Once done, you'll be given an option to download your converted video.  Unfortunately, the 'Save to Google Drive' option didn't work in several different browsers we tried.  The Download button worked flawlessly, however.  Once downloaded, you can upload it back to Google Drive or YouTube for easy streaming.

Classroom application? Creating classroom videos using some devices will create video files that will not stream or play on a mobile device easily.   Now, use your Google Drive to convert the video to the .mp4 format and then upload it back to your Google Drive.  From your iPad's Google Drive app, search for your new video file and click on the 'i' icon for Details. Clicking the 'Open In' icon will let you 'Save Video' to your iPad.  Now students can watch your video on the classroom iPad from the Photos app.

What are some other reasons for converting videos in Google Drive?  Share your ideas in the comments below!

Looking for music for that video project or presentation? Try Jamendo

Creating video product is a great learning experience for students and teachers alike. The process of digital storytelling is a robust topic in and of itself; one I hope to address in a future post.

Now for the topic at hand - Finding music that is properly licensed for classroom video projects. Like many classroom teachers, my personal video projects have a pretty tight licensing budget (usually around $0.00, give or take a nickel). Over the years I have tried several things to address music in my videos most of which cost me money or time in one way or another.

I recently found Jamendo through a Creative Commons search.

"Jamendo is the largest platform for free music in the world. It allows independent artists to showcase their creations and to find new fans looking for new music. The Jamendo catalog is published under Creative Commons licenses that allow artists to publish their music and to preserve their rights, while providing users the freedom to download and share it."


The Jamendo Search allows the user to search by musical genre, instrument focus and mood. Results can be filtered further by country of origin, language and Creative Commons License type.
Each of the three examples below are licensed for non-commercial use as long as you give the artist credit. The third example has the added stipulation that you "Don't alter, transform or build upon this album".


Need some "Happy Electronic" music? Try:

 Maybe your student has a science fiction story to tell. Maybe this will do:

 Maybe the story calls for a "pop jazz rock" tune? Hmm, maybe Diablo Swing Orchestra?

Need A Geography Project?

An elementary teacher asked me today about how to make a travel video (with arrows flying across the map and everything) on her pc like  Apple's iPhoto will do on her Macbook.  The question threw me back three years to a Discovery Education Network institute I attended in Boston.  My group wanted to create a video that included all of our home towns, some state facts, and we had little time to do it.

Enter TripWow.  Officially found at http://tripwow.tripadvisor.com , TripWow is incredibly easy to use.  Just upload photos and tag each one with the city it was taken. You can rearrange them, add captions to them, and even choose music other than the automatically geographically-centric music that plays during the show.

I sat down and in ten minutes made the video below. Super easy!

Our Field Trip to Mexico And Beyond Slideshow: Mrmartinsclass’s trip from Austin, Texas, United States to 4 cities Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta, Panama City and Amazon River was created by TripAdvisor. See another Mexico slideshow. Create your own stunning free slideshow from your travel photos.

Extensions?  All of my photos were taken from the Creative Commons in Flicker. I should cite each individual picture, but the Creative Commons exists for people to share and use photos in this community. There are over 35 million photos there and you are free to use them in the classroom!  Search the Commons for countries or historical locations to put into your geography trip.

What a great way to show Coronado's trip across North America, the Oregon Trail, or supplement a Google Lit Trip with a video about the places the character traveled.   How would you use this?

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Paperslide Videos! Easy Way To Use Tech AND Show Learning!

This was one of my favorite Discovery Educator Network (DEN) sessions that I've attended over my many years teaching. The DEN likes to put teachers in the students' shoes sometimes and making Paperslide videos was a fun activity, engaging activity, only took 20 minutes before we were sharing, and was totally centered around a specific teaching objective.


Paper Slide Video: Solids, Liquids and Gasses from Heather Hurley on Vimeo.

Basically, Paperslide Videos are nothing more than sheets of papers that slide under the view of a recording camera. It's all done in one take, with no editing. It could be a nice way to introduce Powerpoint in that you aren't having students just jam 150 words on to a page, but they must rely on visual literacy to depict the lines from the song or their spoken lecture.  There are no faces or names in the video, so the product could go immediately onto the class blog/wiki to be shared with other students and parents. But best of all, the students are rehearsing and creating the pictures, which means in order to teach the objective, they must learn it first.

Dr. Lodge McCammon, (with the Friday Institute out of NC State University),  brings this to teachers quite frequently and he works extensively with the fine people of Discovery Education. He actually uses Paperslide Videos to explain the concept (the top video) and how to make one.

What can you do with Paperslide Videos? Some teachers use them just to capture a teacher or student-directed lecture video.  That is a great first step through the door, but another very engaging product is to make a Paperslide Video to illustrate a song.  Dr. Lodge has a lot of songs already on Discovery Education (search 'lodge' and media type 'song' to find 45 tunes organized by standard/subject/etc) or visit his other blog.

Check out what Mr. C's class did with "On The Numberline" in one class period with his Austin ISD students.

Lastly, excellent teacher in the DEN, Heather Hurley, shared a Paperslide they did on States of Matter that uses one of Lodge's songs! She used a video-sharing site, Vimeo, to share this with her colleagues and parents.  I embedded this video at the top of this post to catch your attention!

Now, the same songs can also be used in a very kinesthetic environment by having students act out the lyrics instead of drawing them.  While not a Paperslide video, the same concepts apply and the time for the product is still maintained within part of a class period.  Check out how students showed the Order of Operations in this music video.

Create your own Paperslide Videos!!   Leave a comment below with a link to one your class made. We'd love to see it.  

Capturing YouTube

It's a nice thing, finding a great educational video clip on YouTube.  Using video to explain some educational idea you are teaching in the classroom is great, but modeling a valid use of a video-hosting site like YouTube to students is something the students don't see often.

In AISD, teachers are able to authenticate their way through the firewall and get access to the video. However, depending on the time of day and volume of network traffic, 'having' and 'using' YouTube access can be two different things. Enter KeepVid.com.

The trick to streaming video in the classroom is, well, not to stream it. Even DiscoveryStreaming will let you download the video clips. YouTube doesn't make it one-click easy, but KeepVid will let you take the URL of the clip, paste it into the URL block, and then download it in a few different formats.  Once downloaded, the video plays quickly without lag because it is already on the computer.

There are a number of ways to accomplish something like this; browser plugins, Safari resource list, etc. How do you use YouTube in the classroom?  What tips do you have that may help others?